Rufrano Joins ARCP at Auspicious Time

By Scott Baltic, Contributing Editor

Glenn Rufrano

Well, that didn’t take long. The rumor mill was spot on, and timely, too, and indeed former Cushman & Wakefield president/CEO Glenn Rufrano’s appointment as the new CEO at troubled REIT American Realty Capital Properties, effective April 1, was announced on Tuesday. Only a day earlier, Commercial Property Executive had reported on Rufrano’s status as the apparent front-runner for the job vacated in December by Nicholas Schorsch.

Meanwhile, a brand-new report points toward a lively year for the net-lease sector; more on that in a moment.

At ARCP, Rufrano, 64, will take over from independent director William Stanley, ARCP’s interim CEO. Rufrano will be leaving his slot as chairman & CEO of O’Connor Capital Partners, which he had co-founded in 1983 and to which he returned not long after his sudden departure from Cushman in June 2013.

“ARCP is a young company, grown rapidly, which now requires a sound business path,” Rufrano said in a release. “I look forward to meeting the management team, thoroughly analyzing the assets and reviewing the details of the balance sheet while at the same time seeking thoughts from the institutional investor community. Once complete, we will organize a strategic plan and begin execution to maximize the value of the core REIT assets, Cole Capital and the enterprise.”

“Rufrano’s initial focus will be to analyze and understand the business and then formulate a strategy that will ensure financial stability and return the company to growth,” an ARCP spokesperson told Commercial Property Executive. “With that in mind, it would be inappropriate for him to comment on the company’s future direction until he has time to get acclimated.”

The other change at ARCP will be the replacement of two board members, Leslie Michelson and Gov. Edward Rendell, who will step down on April 1. The spokesperson told CPE that the ACRP board “remains focused on announcing a new non-executive chairman in the near term. They are working with Korn Ferry on the search for candidates.”

On the broader front, a first-half  2015 outlook on the net-lease sector by Marcus & Millichap predicts that a “pump dividend” from lower gasoline prices will boost retail sales, particularly among lower-income families. These households are thus expected to spend more at retailers like Walmart and Target.

More discretionary income in the middle-income population is expected to swell traffic for restaurants and fast-food locations, while increased penalties for the uninsured under the Affordable Care Act will help drive business at drug stores and at their growing number of retail clinics, according to M&M.

Overall retail growth is expected to be in “the mid- to high-3 percent range,” the outlook predicted.

Finally, the M&M report noted that investors seeking loans on net-leased assets continue to find a wide range of options, as the activity of national banks, local banks and CMBS “has kept rates below 4 percent for best-in-class assets.”